The Effectiveness of Improving Working Memory through Play Therapy on Learning English as a Foreign Language in Educable Mentally Retarded Children

These study is to investigate the effectiveness of working memory play based therapy on foreign language learning of educable mentally retarded students in Mashhad. To this end, 10 educable mentally retarded 9 to 13 years old school-boys who knew nothing in English were chosen. They were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. Cornoldi’s (1995) visuospatial working memory test was taken from both groups as a working memory pre-test which revealed that both groups were mostly equal regarding their working memory level. Subsequently, the experimental group’s level of working memory was enhanced through play therapy sessions. Conducting the same working memory test as a post-test to both groups revealed that working memory play therapy sessions resulted in experimental group’s significantly better performance in working memory post-test from the control group. After that, both groups received equal amounts of instruction in English as a foreign language classes. To indicate that whether working memory improvement will enhance foreign language learning of students in experimental group, an oral production vocabulary test was taken from both groups as a post-test. The students’ performance in the post-test revealed that the experimental group gained significantly better results in their English language post-test than the control group. Finally, the limitations and implications of the study were discussed.

Keywords:

Working Memory , Play Therapy , Foreign language learning , Educable Mentally Retarded Children